LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Three teenagers are alleged to have forcibly taken a man at gunpoint and driven him to a secluded desert location an hour away from Las Vegas to rob him of $4 million in cryptocurrency and other digital holdings.
Belal Ashraf and Austin Fletcher, both aged 16 from Pasco County, Florida, along with a third teenager, are facing charges that include robbery, kidnapping, and extortion, as indicated by court records. A juvenile court judge has previously decided that Ashraf and Fletcher should be tried as adults.
According to a prosecutor during Fletcher’s probable cause hearing on Friday, the third teenager is no longer in the country. The suspects are accused of seizing $4 million worth of cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), prosecutors stated.
Last November, a man called police saying three young men kidnapped him at gunpoint, drove him to a remote desert area, and stole millions of dollars from him, documents said.
That night, the victim was hosting a cryptocurrency-related event at a business in Downtown Las Vegas, police said. The victim then returned to his apartment complex and parked his car. The three suspects then approached him and forced him into the back seat of their vehicle, police said.
“[The victim] was told if he complied, he would live to see another day, and if he did not comply, they had his dad and would kill him,” documents said. “[The victim] had a towel placed over his head and was told by the suspects not to look at them.”
The young men demanded the victim’s passwords and threatened him for access to his financial accounts, police said. It also appeared that another person was directly speaking to the young men through a phone call, which the victim could hear through a speakerphone.
Police suspect the three young men then drove the victim across the Nevada border to White Hills, Arizona — more than 70 miles and an hour’s drive from Las Vegas. The victim walked five miles alone in the desert to reach a gas station where he called a friend to pick him up, documents said.
Metro investigators later tracked a possible suspect vehicle traveling from Florida to Nevada, specifically including the locations of the victim’s apartment. In a separate vehicle stop in Mississippi, a gun involving a suspect’s family member matched one in one of the teenager’s social media profiles, police said.
The three teenagers were also involved in disturbances together at a Florida high school, police said.
In one report from last summer, the young men “were reported as swearing in English and Arabic, and [Ashraf] was observed shoulder checking a school resource officer,” and screaming at an assistant principal, documents said.
During Friday’s hearing, Fletcher’s public defender argued for her client to serve house arrest. Las Vegas Justice Court Judge Daniel Westmeyer set bail at $4 million.
During a hearing Tuesday in Ashraf’s case, his attorney, Ross Goodman, argued for his client to serve house arrest. Las Vegas Justice Court Judge Noreen Demonte ordered Ashraf’s release with electronic monitoring, records said.
A preliminary hearing was scheduled for June. The FBI assisted in the investigation, documents said.
